For US Utilities serving 3,000-100,000 meters and for operations team, billing team and utility managers. For Heads of Billing who own collections accuracy and revenue leakage.
A thermal energy network (TEN) is a shared underground loop of water-filled pipe that connects many buildings to heat pumps, so the group can heat and cool itself using the ground, water, or waste heat instead of burning gas in each building. The U.S. Department of Energy uses "networked geothermal" and "thermal energy network" for the same idea. For a gas utility, a TEN is a possible new service: the utility builds and operates the pipe, and customers pay for heating and cooling.
A thermal energy network moves heat between buildings through a loop of piping, rather than making heat in each building with a furnace or boiler. The U.S. Department of Energy describes networked geothermal, also called thermal energy networks, as shared underground infrastructure that heats and cools many buildings at once, from neighborhoods and campuses to whole communities (U.S. DOE).
Each building connects to the loop and uses a heat pump to take heat out of the water in winter and put heat into it in summer. Because buildings need heating and cooling at different times, the shared loop lets one building's waste heat serve another.
The pipe runs at about the depth of a typical natural gas system, according to DOE. That detail is why gas utilities pay attention: the skills, rights-of-way, and customer relationships are similar to the ones they already have.
This page explains what a TEN is, how it works, why gas utilities are piloting them, and what a new service like this changes for a utility's customer, asset, and billing records. If your utility already runs a gas utility management platform, those records are where the change shows up first.
The basic design has four parts:
Design varies. Systems can be standalone or paired with other energy systems, use ground-source heat pumps or direct geothermal heat, and provide heating and cooling or heating only.
Utility Dive describes TENs as a new generation of district heating and cooling networks that draw heat from the ground, surface water, or waste heat, and use electricity to move it (Utility Dive). Older district energy systems carry steam or hot water from a central plant that often burns fossil fuels or biomass.
A TEN is easy to confuse with two systems it resembles. The differences matter for planning and for what a regulator will ask. The methane records a gas utility keeps for its pipe, covered in our guide to methane emissions reporting for gas utilities, have no counterpart on a water loop, which is one reason utilities look at networks.
DOE gives several operating examples. Boise runs a municipally operated heating utility with more than 20 miles of pipeline. Framingham, Massachusetts, has a utility-owned system. Ball State University serves 47 buildings from about 3,600 boreholes (U.S. DOE). The ownership model is not fixed, which is part of why regulators and utilities are still working out how these services fit.
Gas utilities face a long-term question: how to serve customers if gas use falls in the buildings they serve. Several pressures point the same way, and our overview of city gas distribution trends covers the wider market shifts behind them.
Not every gas utility will build a network, and many will not. But the question is on regulators' agendas, so utility leaders need to know the model.
Most activity in the United States is in pilots. The best-documented programs are:
The New York process was still moving when this page was written. Check the Public Service Commission's case record for the current stage of each pilot before relying on any date.
Pilot designs differ, but a utility-owned network generally follows this sequence.
Steps six and seven are where the utility's customer and billing systems matter most, and they are the steps that existing records have to support.
A thermal network adds a service the utility has not billed before. It is a new product, with its own customers, equipment, and charges, even when the utility is the same company. The change touches several records.
Before the first customer connects, a utility can check its readiness with a few questions:
Can your customer system hold two services at one location, such as gas and a thermal service, and bill each under its own rate?
Can your asset register track equipment that sits on the customer's side of the connection?
Can your billing system add a new rate class without a vendor change request?
If the answer to any of these is no, the first project is the system, not the pilot. Asset records are the foundation; our guide to gas utility asset management software explains what a gas asset register should hold and how it supports replacement planning.
SMART360 is a utility management platform for utilities serving roughly 3,000 to 100,000 connections. It is not thermal network engineering, design, or control software, and it does not run heat pumps or loop operations. What it provides is the customer, asset, work order, and billing record system that a new service has to plug into:
A thermal energy network is a shared underground loop of water-filled pipe that connects many buildings to heat pumps, so the group can heat and cool using the ground, water, or waste heat. The U.S. Department of Energy uses "networked geothermal" and "thermal energy network" for the same thing.
Traditional district energy carries steam or hot water from a central plant that often burns fossil fuel or biomass. A thermal energy network circulates water near ground temperature, and each building uses an electric heat pump to take heat from or put heat into it.
Gas utilities have rights-of-way, pipe-laying skills, and customer relationships that a network needs. Some states, including New York under its Utility Thermal Energy Network and Jobs Act, require large utilities to propose pilots.
It is a New York law, in force since July 2022, that requires the state's seven largest investor-owned utilities to each propose at least one thermal energy network pilot. The Public Service Commission reviews proposals in stages.
No. SMART360 does not provide network engineering or control. It holds the customer accounts, service points, asset records, work orders, and configurable rates that a utility needs to bill and serve a new service.
A new service is a records and billing change as much as a construction project. SMART360 keeps customer accounts, service points, asset records, work orders, and configurable rates on one database, so a utility can add a service without rebuilding its systems.
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